People of Wal-Mart:
what the **** is wrong with you?
You are reducing our lives
and prices in unison...

Today, in passing, i saw on T.V.
a special report:  a year
after super-storm Sandy, New Jersey
still hasn't gotten its
sand dunes back.

This is news?

It took 5 years for the
Gulf Coast to begin recovering
from Hurricane Opal.
No national headlines about
Okaloosa Island a year later.
It was flat.  It didn't
used to be.

A year after Hurricane  Katrina,
all i heard was that Kanye West
thought President Bush didn't
care about black people.  But
Wal-Mart helped with logistics
deliveries.  Because Bush asked (kind of).
We  basically lost a major city
that time.

Where was our airborne toxic event?
Our 15 minutes post mortem?

Thanks for helping, Wal-Mart.
But this is all your fault.

Because without cheaper stuff,
the People of Wal-Mart
would still be able to think.
They would know that
consumerism is great, but also
that it is an identity crisis.
A buzz in their heads.
Our nation fights wars
for capitalism,
but our soldiers fight
for their lives.

So i will see you on
Black Friday, Wal-Mart.

We are dying here in the
South, we have to save
a penny where ever we can.

And, People of Wal-Mart, don't forget:
No president cares about any individual.
The greater good prevails.
And **** your sand dunes, New Jersey.

Let us have a footrace to Scotland...
don't worry, you will probably win.
i am pacing myself.

It doesn't matter which path
either of us take: i know
i was high for the first half of the race.

Am i lost?  Who knows?
But i will find my way.
This is how our stories go.

So hurry up, buttercup.
You might win, and then crowd watch.
but if i lose i will still find the Scotch.

i am so broke,
i can't even afford to pay attention...*

We know, America.
We are too.

Stop making sense,
it isn't helping.

i am sitting outside,
searching a sunset:
a plant loving light,
gobbling it up through
every pore.
Looking for the pinpoints
of ancient transmission.
i see a bulge...NO...
two, THREE!:
alien fingers pressing
latex event horizon,
mixed palette cornea burned.
     (Just a flashback, a
      cold beach night in
      my memory, feeling
      small in the universe
      again; chain-smoking
      unfiltered cigarettes,
      forcing a process, tasted
      bittersweet on the
      tip of my tongue.)

i hate you, Florida,
but every where is equally
beautiful in the now.
None of it is home.

i don't know what that means...

is it here, where i am
understood, examined?

i am cold, seeking fire:
i need to cut you wide
open, Luke's Tauntaun, and
stuff you full of my words,
replace your white insides
with black and gray ink.

To live.
To BURN.
In the light, the way of forever.

Confused seems to be the new grade.
i've brought it home on my report cards
for years and yet
never allowed it to dampen until now.

It would appear to many that i have
lifted a new blank page from the books
and flailed around senselessly, finally
resorting to casually disembarking the
book on an outward passage through
the plate glass window of the 19th
floor apartment.
It doesn't scream on the way down,
primarily due to the complex fact that
it knew in some way or form that
this day would come eventually.

(Across the street, an old man sat
on a park bench, feeding popcorn
and alka-seltzer to the flocks of
pigeons he attracted.  He watched
the book's swan dive and unapologetically
smiled inside: also so disenchanted that
he too gave himself coal in his
stocking labeled "Dreams.")

i don't smile anymore for them;
makes me sad inside, i guess,
because one day we will be old,
carry our canes arthritically and
look for and reminisce about each,
but who knows if together.

i have spent all this weekend
building voodoo dolls
out of belly-button lint,
newspaper clippings, pipe cleaners,
and tufts of my own hair.

They all have names.
The Fearless Lemming.
Odenkirk.
Mr. Tweezles.
Vexorg, the Merciless.
Bob.

Forgive me father, for i have sinned
and i liked it...

Vexorg, true to his name,
slew the Lemming in single combat.
It was...disturbing, at best,
and quite messy.
Mr. Tweezles betrayed his sacred
post as medicine man,
poisoning Vexorg with krokodil.
I thought Odenkirk would
exhibit strength of character,
but he fled in the night
like a *****, most likely
in fear of Bob.
Mr. Tweezles should have paid attention
to that turn of events.
Bob fancied himself an attorney,
and Mr. Tweezles thought
himself clever and indestructible.

i am Dark Helmet,
playing puppet-master
with my dolls,
red-handed
intercepted.

Today's horoscope:
*Fear death by stupidity.

Mercury is retrograde,
reducing me to idioms:
life is the Cobra Kai dojo,
and we are the Pilates kids.

So *******, messenger boy.
i can still communicate,

if i need to.